Bradley University Theatre

This week, we're talking with Scott Kanoff, from the Bradley University Department of Theatre Arts, about their production of "These Shining Lives." The play tells the story of women who worked at the Radium Dial Company in Ottawa, IL, the toll that work took on their health, and the legal case they pursued against the company. Kanoff talks about the play, why they selected it, and some local connections to the story it recounts. The performance on Sunday, February 26th, the department will also present a moot court trial on the legal issues involved in the story.

Our guest this week is Scott Knoff, who's directing "Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play" at Bradley University. The play features three retellings of an episode of "The Simpsons:" as a tale told around a campfire, again as a performance by a group of re-enactors, and finally as a grand opera. Kanoff says the play is an exploration of the act of storytelling and the function stories have in a our culture. He also talks about some of the "table work" the company did in its preparation, and about audience response to the show's opening weekend.

This week, we're talking with Susan Felder, from the Bradley University Theatre Department. She's directing their production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull."

She talks about how the characters and conflicts in the play make it a good fit for younger actors, and about how Chekhov writing style. His works profoundly changed both the way characters are written, and how actors today try to interpret those characters.

"The Seagull" runs through Sunday, March 6th, at the Hartmann Center on the Bradley campus in Peoria.

This week, we're talking with Scott Kanoff, from the Bradley Theatre Department, about their production of "High Fidelity." The musical is an adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel (and the subsequent film), and features a score that draws inspiration from several decades of rock and pop music. Kanoff talks about some of the music featured in the show. He also talks about introducing his students -- raised in a world of iTunes and Spotify -- to vinyl LPs.

Performances of "High Fidelity" continue Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon at the Hartmann Center on the Bradley campus.

This week, we're talking with Susan Felder, who's directing Bradley University Theatre's production of "The Mountaintop." The play, by Katori Hall, depicts an invented interaction between Dr. Martin Luther King and a hotel maid, in the hours before King's assassination. Felder talks about the play's "warts-and-all" look at King, and the realities of race in 1960s America. She also talks about the two actors featured in the production, and working with them to create performances that worth both as history, and as drama.